No one disputes it anymore: the '70s had a second Moptop revolution, and it was made of four leatherbound scuzzos from Queens. Not that their music had the same depth of the Beatles—not that it had any depth at all—but the shockwave had almost the same power. So the Ramones have deserved an insightful, detailed documentary film for thirty years, more so than any other band that's come around during that time. With Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia's ten-years-in-the-making End of the Century, not only do they have one, they have probably the best "rockumentary" yet produced.

Most movies in the genre have the same flaw: individual personalities overshadow that of the band as a whole (witness Jeff Tweedy in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart), or vice versa (the Sex Pistols in The Filth and the Fury). Fields and Gramaglia manage to give equal time to both: a family unit and all of its complicated dysfunction. Every band member—even short-lived drummer Ricky Ramone—is interviewed and profiled. Johnny is presented as the hard-tempered dictator, Joey the quiet, gawky true-believer, Tommy (and assorted other drummers) the sidelined Ringo type, and poor Dee Dee the pathetic, drug-addled burnout (the film ends with a caption outlining his overdose and death two months after filming ended). But, bonded by their street-tough apparel and love of The Stooges, New York Dolls, and their own music, they're all in it together—which Johnny himself notes when discussing his bitter relationship with Joey: "He was a member of the Ramones, and I loved the Ramones. If someone did something to him, I'd be wanting to defend him...it was an insult to the Ramones."

Band unity or no, this documentary isn't afraid to get painfully personal. They highlight the band members bickering onstage, Johnny stealing (and marrying) Joey's girlfriend, Dee Dee's prostitute wife knifing half the band. Nor do they gloss over embarrassments like a recording fiasco with Phil Spector or Dee Dee's godawful excursion into rap. The filmmakers understand that these uncomfortable moments (and the comfortable ones, such as the band’s surprising stardom in Brazil) are part of who the Ramones were, and as a result they make a better film, seemingly crammed with every detail. End of the Century is by turn crude, raw, loud, fast-paced, smart, dumb, and hilarious... exactly the qualities of the best Ramones material.

It's the legacy of that material that the movie always comes back to. In addition to the Ramones themselves, Fields and Gramaglia get input from their entourage, their followers (including Joe Strummer of the Clash and teenage-Sex-Pistol Glen Matlock), and their contemporaries--including a hilarious bit with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie. Journalist Legs McNeil recalls that their first album "immediately made half our record collections obsolete," and band manager Danny Fields tells us that they taught the prog-rock-dominated America and England, "'Don't worry about being good musicians. You don't have to be good, you don't have to be pretty. Just get up there and play.'" That alone justifies not only End of the Century's release, but everyone in the world seeing it.



Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older